Chapter 8. The language learning potential of form-focused feedback on writing

This chapter uses a case study approach to look at students’ and teacher’s perceptions of the language learning potential of form-focused feedback on writing. It explores the ways in which motivated students used form-focused feedback on their writing by purposefully exploiting the opportunities for consciousness-raising, noticing and further practice that it provided. It is argued that feedback use was not a passive process of teachers giving feedback and students using it to correct their papers. Instead students were actively engaged in defining their own learning needs and deciding how the feedback could best be utilised to achieve their language learning goals. It is suggested that such active student participation and engagement is crucial if the language learning potential of feedback is to be fully exploited in learning-to-write contexts.